Tag Archives: library school for the homeschooler

I recently stumbled across a notebook in my garage, its pages filled with an abundance of notes about effective homeschooling. Because college skills die hard, I had dated these notes carefully.

(Let us pause and remember college in the 90’s when students had to take page after page of notes during lectures. There were no MacBook’s taking up space in the classroom or virtual lectures one could attend in their PJs.

Let us also pause and reflect on the fact that the husband and I just tossed our hundreds of pages of college and grad school notes about five years ago when we realized they were obsolete and Google could tell us everything we would ever need to know.)

These notes I came across were dated July 2015. It was during that time I attended a homeschool convention and was inspired to have the best homeschool year EVER! We would do lapbooks and notebook every snippet of history we read. Science experiments would happen weekly and artists studies would be a routine part of our school.

Some of these things have occurred.

But LIFE has also occurred.

February also happened, which all seasoned homeschoolers know to be prime burnout month.

A great solution I found to this problem of stale homeschooling and abandoned science experiment dreams was to do library school.

Library school is where we keep the curriculum at home, grab the library card and some pencils, and head out to find some education among the shelves of our local establishment. Each child was given a handout that had various subjects printed on it. For example, there was history, science, religion, poetry, math, and grammar. I also included sections that said “Interesting fiction book” and “biography that caught my attention.” Each of these sections had their own box on the worksheet. After a quick refresher course on the Dewey Decimal System, the kids were set free into the library.

Their instructions for the day: Find books for each of the categories. Read and examine the books (they were not expected to read the ENTIRE book…we had other things to do that day…but to read excerpts and sections that appealed to them). Then write down notes and/or illustrations from those books.

Later that night the kids shared what they had learned. In the course of about two hours they had sought out information about foreign languages that appealed to them, had brushed up on pieces of history that struck their fancy, and had learned some really great things on their own.

Library school cannot replace every day homeschooling but it can bring life back into home education. It shows children that learning and research is fun. Library school puts knowledge into the hands of the child. Rather than force feeding facts down a kid’s throat, the child is empowered to step out on his/her own and find knowledge for himself.